I swear to God that I was just here for a passing second whilst researching washing-machine purchase. I am not lurking permanently just waiting for someone to name me in a thread title and ask my opinion about grammar.

My rule of thumb is to hyphenate words which jointly qualify the following noun except in the case of adverbial compounds where the 'ly' ending of the adverb makes it plain that the adverb itself qualifies the term immediately following and that they therefore jointly qualify the noun.

In other words '-ly' has the effect of indicating a word partnership to the reader so that the hyphen doesn't need to be enlisted to make that partnership plain.

Therefore I certainly wouldn't hyphenate 'newly built housing' but I would hyphenate all the other terms you mention.

I don't really understand why your client's rule would mean that 'goat-trading business' etc wouldn't be hyphenated. But then I am thick about formal grammatical rules (which stood me in great stead when I edited a very prickly linguist who had a thing about rules).

Sheesh thready, that is very interesting but of no use to me (unless I go back to them and say 'your rules are crap'. Maybe that is what I should do - I must admit the adjectival/adverbial thing seemed an arbitrary distinction to me).

I bought the cheapest washing machine going (White Knight, I think it is) about five years ago and it's still getting felt-tip pen off in a thoroughly satisfactory manner. Probably a very bad energy rating though.

Sorry , I'm being rude (or jokey in a way that's not translating well).

I don't think the rules do allow it, do they? 'trading' and 'building' both being verbs - they don't want me to hyphenate what they call 'adverbial compounds'. I thought 'goat-trading' and 'capacity-building' both qualify as adverbial. Maybe not? I'm shite at formal grammar.

No, you aren't being rude. We just seem to have a mutual misunderstanding.

My understanding is that your client is excluding from hyphenation adverbial compounds considered as a special subset of adjectival compounds. I.e. as I understand it, adverbial compounds are compound adjectives in which the first term is an adverb which qualifies the second term (so that they both then qualify the following noun jointly).

The essential point is that you don't need a hyphen when another linguistic feature (the ly ending)is making a word partnership evident.

I would like a Miele but I was afraid of the price. Is bosch ecomomically impolite bcs expensive or bcs cheap? (Typically middle class, I'm not sure whether to feel angsty about my seeming wealth or angsty about my seeming poverty.)

Have I given the impression of being a hyphen jihadist then? I keep sounding dogmatic and offended when I don't mean to be. I am almost never ever angry with other posters, only annoyed with the crappiness that all my posts seem to have immediately after I press 'send'.